Poetic Simplicity

Wake UP!

I woke up this morning with a familiar flutter in my stomach. This is a feeling I have at the beginning of each vacation and the start of every summer. It means that I’m looking forward to an adventure. I daydream about the protagonist in the movie who gets swept off her feet by an Italian pop star that she runs into at a fountain or of the nerdy coworker at the terrible summer job that convinces her to steal a car and smoke pot on the top of a mountain making her feel more alive than ever. Needless to say, nothing like that ever happens to me. This morning, though, I realized why. I’m never going to have an adventure sitting in my parents’ house watching MTV all day. I’m not going to feel alive while I’m living by the rules. So, this summer, I’m going to succumb to that flutter. I’m seeking adventure and with any luck, I’ll find some.

“I get my courage from this feeling; that what I’m seeking is looking for me to.”

Thoughts on Growing up: 3 years apart

Tightrope

There are two different camps of how to live your life: the way you want to and the way you should. I’m in the unique position of getting to see how each of those play out over time because, of my four grandparents, I have two in each camp.

With my mother’s parents, the live-how-you-wanters, there wasn’t much doubt about their happiness. My grandfather smoked and drank and threw house parties well into his eighties. He had diabetes but he didn’t do much about it. He certainly didn’t let it stop him from ordering cobbler. He insisted on living in his own house. Even though he was alone. Even though it was miles from the nearest hospital, hell, from the nearest grocery store. Even though he’d had a triple bypass and an infection from the triple bypass. It caused his children so much stress. They had to pay a neighbor (under the table because he never would have allowed it if he knew) to check on him and clean his house and cook for him. He didn’t get to die in his house like he wanted but he spent his last lucid days there. His funeral was an all out house party until 5 in the morning. There was no doubt that that’s what he would have wanted. My grandmother was doted on like a queen which is what she liked most. She lived in an apartment above my aunt’s garage which meant she was never far from her daughter, son-in-law, or two grandchildren who would make runs to McDonalds in her Egg McMuffin phase or come sit by her and listen to CSPAN or bring her mochi ice cream when she wanted it. Lung cancer is what took her because she didn’t stop smoking until they put that oxygen tank in her apartment as a permanent fixture. When the cancer moved to her brain, they gave her steroids which gave her quite an appetite. She wanted beer and ice cream. She took advantage of her situation to get back at her younger sister by making her drive to the other side of the island to buy her huli huli chicken everyday. Her memorial, too, was easy. There would be chinese food and there would be family.

My father’s parents are the live-how-you-should-ers. Their whole lives, they have stopped eating eggs when they heard they were bad for cholesterol then started again when they learned that was false. They always kept active starting with tennis, then golf when that became too much, then swimming and the rowing machine when the arthritis kicked in. They got married in the summer, my grandmother says, “because summertime was more convienent.” They had four boys, each two years younger than his brother and they payed for all of their college while also teaching them the meaning of earning and saving through summer jobs. Everything they do is in moderation. They eat balanced diets. They are social but don’t overwork themselves. They moved to a retirement community before they needed assistance to ease the burden of my dad and uncles as they aged. My grandfather’s lung cancer tumor disappeared likely due to his overall health and fitness. All the while, they’ve stayed married and…content.

It’s easy to look at these two extremes and think you know which is right. See, I’ve spent my whole life living as I should. It makes the people around me happy. I was always a good daughter and a good student and a good kid. My grandparents, all of them, were proud of me. My parents too. It wasn’t until I found myself in a new city, alone, that I began to question this ideaology. I know that there has to be some sort of balance. I now look at my dad’s parents and wonder if they’ve ever truly been happy. Their lives are so full of rules. I wonder if they ever eat two slices of pie because they want to. Yeah, it’s a lot of calories but it’s also damn good. I wonder if they ever called in to work just because the sun was shining and they felt like having a picnic instead. At the same time, it’s difficult to ignore that they’re still here. They are both older than my mom’s parents and they are both still going strong. I can’t pretend that I didn’t see what the stubborness of my maternal grandparents did to my mom and her siblings. They were happy but what about the ones they loved? I couldn’t help but feel cheated by the fact that my grandfather, a college proffessor, didn’t live long enough to see my high school graduation much less any part of my college experience. My dad’s parents maybe aren’t very carefree but I’m banking on that quality of them to bring them to my wedding. This is the biggest internal struggle of mine right now. I want so badly to be reckless. I don’t want to be weighed down by the shoulds but I also see all the importance that gives them their weight.